SACRAMENTO– The game is really no different for Crystal Kelly.

The basket is still 10 feet high, the free throw line still 15 feet from the rim. The jersey number is still 42, the same number adorning her banner hanging from the Diddle Arena rafters following her illustrious career at Western.

The circumstances, however, have changed. She’s no longer donning the Western red and white. She’s traded it for Sacramento Monarch purple. The four letters she plays under now aren’t the NCAA, but the WNBA. She’s no longer the feature player on a team laden with role players, the way it was with the Lady Toppers and in high school for Sacred Heart Academy in Louisville. Kelly herself is a role player, a role that she is just fine with.

“I had to just humble myself,” Kelly said. “And knowing that I have a specific role on the team and that’s what I’m brought in here to do. And everyone has accepted their role, and the people who are starters, they treat us the exact same. So that really helps us because it keeps our confidence up.”

Her average stat line is modest in her first season as a pro: 7.6 points, 3.3 rebounds per game. Far from the record-breaking numbers she put up while on the Hill.

But now, those numbers don’t mean much. Not that they aren’t legendary, but this is the WNBA. Every player on her respective team has plenty of records in her alma mater’s history books. Now, she’s just trying to fit in, both as a player and as an adult on her own for the first time, 2,228 miles from home.

It all began fast. Kelly was drafted by the Houston Comets in the third round of the WNBA Draft on April 9. In early May, she graduated from Western with a degree in public relations. On May 15, Houston cut her.

“I was so excited when I got drafted, that was such a great moment,” Kelly said. “But when I got cut, I mean, it was very challenging there. When I got cut from Houston, I was just devastated. Like, ‘how could this have happened? This was supposed to work out perfectly.’”

On May 18, the phone rang, it was the Sacramento Monarchs. They wanted to sign her. She had found a team, a home to begin her dream.

Now the transition went from finding a home on the court, to actually finding a home. Kelly is no longer covered by the security blanket of a dorm, meal plan and a class schedule. It’s now about making rent, remembering practice times and paying bills.

Her apartment is one typical of a 21-year-old just starting out. Nice and neat, but the apartment is not covered with expensive things. But Kelly is content, as well as thriving and flourishing on her own. The college kid in her is still around, though, her TV is constantly on channels like Comedy Central and she still enjoys being with her teammates, lounging and doing nothing when she’s not at practice or a game.

Kelly has taken to the team, just as the team has taken to Kelly.

“She does a lot of good things,” Monarchs guard Ticha Penicheiro said. “For a rookie, she has a great basketball IQ. She’s very intelligent. Her presence itself, it’s incredible. She’s fearless and does her job well.”

Kelly has to, the team sees too much potential in her and her ability to help the team.

“She came in at a high level,” head coach Jenny Boucek said. “Obviously, she came from a good program that prepared her well. Both as a player and a person her maturity is way ahead of the game as a rookie. Her basketball instincts are something she came with that are something you can’t teach.”

On Sunday night, the Monarchs will play host to the Minnesota Lynx with both teams vying for the fourth and final playoff spot in the WNBA’s Western Conference.

The Monarchs are sitting at 16-14 on the season, the Lynx at 14-16.

The crowd of 8,000 fans is slightly larger than the average Kelly was used to seeing while in college.

Kelly begins the game on the bench, cheering for her teammates, but it doesn’t take long for her to see action.

“She has such a capacity to learn, physically and mentally and emotionally,” Boucek said. “She’s grown really quickly and she’s become somebody who we have a lot of faith in and a lot of confidence in and has earned the trust of her teammates. And that rarely happens with a rookie.”

Her play and experience are tested near the end of the game in a crucial situation.

With 1:10 remaining in the game, Sacramento leads 74-67. The Lynx press forces Kelly into a turnover at midcourt. A long bounce pass fails, caroming out of the reach of Monarchs guard Kara Lawson and into the hands of Lynx guard Lindsey Harding who feeds it to Lynx forward Simone Augustus, one-on-one against Kelly. Both players hit the deck after the shot.

The referee blows his whistle. Charging, Monarchs ball, they would go on to win, 78-71.

She scores 10 points, one of only three Monarchs in double figures. But the rookie in her comes out in the stat sheet as well, five turnovers. Kelly knows she has work left to do.

“I had to do something with that play,” Kelly said. “It was my fifth turnover, I think, so I had to do something to get the ball back when the game is that close.”

After the season, Kelly won’t be done playing. She earned a roster spot on a women’s professional team in Barcelona, Spain, where she will play for the next eight months.

“I still can’t believe that this is something I do for work,” Kelly said. “We’ve come along way, this league has come a long way. But we’re still growing. (The WNBA) still has a lot of growing to do. But I just feel like I’m part of that growing process. It still hasn’t hit me yet that this is my career and this is what I’m doing.”

Reach David Harten at sports@chherald.com.